


Untitled Imported Work

by pearbean



Category: Remington Steele (TV)
Genre: M/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-07
Updated: 2007-03-07
Packaged: 2020-10-29 22:40:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20804141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearbean/pseuds/pearbean
Summary: It turns out Murphy is a better detective than Steele thought.





	Untitled Imported Work

**Author's Note:**

> Steele/Murphy, because they're pretty.

Murphy’s hand is tapping irritably on the steering wheel as he waits for the lights to change. He hasn’t said anything yet, and that’s how Steele knows he’s in for it, because that means Murphy is waiting until he’s told Laura so that they can both lay into him in that charming way that they have.

He can picture them now, Laura perched on the edge of her desk, arms folded, while Murphy stands beside her, arms folded, looming protectively, just waiting for him to do something that will piss her off.

“He did what?” Laura will say, disbelieving (because even though she knows him quite well by now, she still secretly hopes he’ll change), and Murphy won’t say anything, he’ll just tilt his head and turn and look at Steele meaningfully, daring him to contradict.

One day he will, just to see Murphy’s face turn dark with anger, but not today. Today he’ll smile back at them, easily, and shrug and say, “We’ll catch up with them again when they get to Switzerland, what are you so worried about?” and Laura will make that incoherent noise of anger (possibly rage, it’s hard to say), and fling up her hands and start pacing around her office (bare feet silent on the carpet because she’s taken her heels off) muttering about expense accounts and air fares and Switzerland and stupid men who have no idea about how to look after money and Murphy will look on and smirk, just a little.

He turns his head to look at Murphy’s profile instead of his long fingers.

It’s not like Steele meant to muck up the stakeout. He never does mean to mess things up, but if they’d just tell him what they’re doing then things would go a whole lot better. It’s not like he’s a stranger to lying and subterfuge and sitting in dark cars watching people. Being treated like a child when one is a master at manipulating and manoeuvring of many kinds grates after a while.

“Your job was to watch the door while Murphy was inside, and make sure no-one came out,” Laura will say, and Steele won’t say “But I was watching the door, and that’s how I know that three heavily armed men went in not long after Murphy did and I didn’t think you’d want your friend dead.”

What he will actually say is “You know I’m a man of action, Ms. Holt,” and raise one eyebrow and his chin slightly to give her that arrogant, cocksure smile he does so well.

Murphy takes off at the green light a little less gently than he could have, foot aggressive on the accelerator. His face is blank except for a tiny crease of annoyance in his forehead which makes Steele smile. It amuses him to exasperate Murphy. It’s so easy.

“Gently there, Boy Racer,” Steele says with what he knows is an irritating breathless laugh as he is jerked back into his seat and grabs the hand grip theatrically. The crease of annoyance deepens, and Steele laughs again, internally.

They pull into the underground garage of the building which houses the Remington Steele detective agency, and which has done since long before Remington Steele actually existed. Steele doesn’t find it difficult to summon inside himself the proprietary attitude that he needs to show to the doorman, who had never even seen him until five months ago. He straightens his jacket and tie in the mirror in the elevator, with Murphy glowering at him, hands in pockets, from beside the buttons, one illuminated for the 7th floor- their destination. He gives himself a lady-killing smile, and smoothes his hair, eyes flicking for a moment to the reflection of his silent companion.

Only then does he notice that the sleeve of Murphy’s jacket is torn, and that he is clearly favouring his right side, unusual for left-handed Murphy.

Laura will be incandescent with rage that he got Murphy hurt. He can’t understand how it happened himself. The only time Murphy was out of his sight was when he went haring off after the fleeing jewel thieves, leaping over a low hedge and round the side of the suburban house they had been watching.

Laura will be waiting for them to get back, foot tapping impatiently, irritated at having had to entrust this thing to Steele so that she could wait for a call to come in from her police contact. She will be sitting behind her desk, reading files in the badly lit room with only the angle-poise desk lamp lighting her work and her face.

He’ll go in there and the first thing he will do is turn the overhead light on using the switch by the door, because she hates it when people do things to help her out when she hasn’t asked them to. Murphy will be behind him, standing too close, like he thinks Steele is going to do a runner, herding him into the room like a sheep-dog crowding a stray sheep.

Laura will notice straight away that there is something wrong with Murphy, and she’ll go from affectionately annoyed about the light to sharp because she will know that something went wrong and that it probably wasn’t Murphy’s fault, good little Murphy. Good, tall, lanky Murphy, same thing.

She won’t let Steele explain, because she still doesn’t trust him (and she’s probably right not to, since he never says what he means anyway) and she does trust Murphy. Murphy will tell it like Steele couldn’t keep his nose out of it, like he was itching for action and so he just barged in on the sting, wanting to bask in the glory. He won’t be surprised, since that’s the way he played it to cover his utter shock at having so misread the whole thing.

Murphy will tell her what happened but no-one will ask for his side of it or think that maybe if they’d told him that Murphy was going in there posing as a fence then he might not have been so alarmed by the goons showing up like they did.

He’d imagined Murphy snooping through desk drawers or cracking a safe; not leaning back in a plush armchair, completely at ease, one leg crossed over the opposite knee, in command of the situation. Murphy had been unrecognisable to Steele in that split-second, his face cold with an arrogant smirk that Steele knew only too well from long hours spent perfecting it in his bedroom mirror.

His posture, his mannerisms, perfectly studied and copied by Murphy’s long limbs, a facsimile of Steele’s own well-rehearsed role. He hadn’t even known Murphy had been watching that closely beyond the necessary ‘I don’t trust this guy as far as I can throw him’ tabs Murphy had been keeping.

There had been a frozen moment as he stood there in the doorway, before he said, smoothly, “Excuse me, gentlemen, I was looking for the washroom. I see I’ve made a mistake.”

It had been too little too late though, and one of the men had called out, inevitably, “Hey! That guy’s Remington Steele! It’s a set up!” and it had all been over.

The elevator doors slide open with a ding, and Murphy gets out first, tugging the cuffs of his shirt down so that they show from under his jacket. The lights are blazing from the reception of the agency, but the doors are locked and Ms. Foxe (Wolfe- because it’s amusing to exasperate her, too) is nowhere to be seen.

Murphy’s frown deepens, and he crosses to the office door and knocks sharply. Steele already knows there will be no reply because Ms. Foxe’s shoes and handbag are gone from her desk, and she wouldn’t have left and locked up while Laura was still here working. Most likely the pair of them have gone off to find a late dinner and gossip about him.

The fact that Laura isn’t there seems to have annoyed Murphy even further. Steele knows he’s been sitting on his anger, and now he can’t tell Laura what an ass Steele has been, he’s like a prowling tiger. Steele leans an elbow on the reception desk and watches while Murphy fidgets, walking from room to room before finally disappearing into his own office.

Murphy is far more fascinating to Steele now that Steele has seen what Murphy can do. Steele had assumed that Murphy was there to do all the grunt work, to do what Laura said, to be the muscle for the agency when it was required. But Murphy is competent in his own right, it seems, and he would have had those thieves hook, line, and sinker if not for Steele.

There’s no way Steele is going to admit that.

Nothing tonight is going the way Steele thought it would, and that knowledge gives him a thrill. He likes surprises.

Murphy comes back out into the reception area, and he has lost his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. Some of the magic of his acting has gone with the impeccable suit and he is back to plain old Murphy. Who, it seems, is not so plain after all.

Steele pushes lazily off the reception counter and crosses to the door of Remington Steele’s office.

“Where are you going?” Murphy’s voice is sharp, and it is the first time he has spoken since he left Steele in the car to watch the door.

“If we’re going to wait for her to come back, we might as well be comfortable,” Steele returns, looking at Murphy over his shoulder, the door handle in one hand.

Murphy comes up behind him as Steele had imagined he would, and waits for Steele to open the door and let them in. He is too close, and the slightest bit taller than Steele, and he doesn’t back off, even when Steele enters the room and turns on the light.

Steele drops into one of the chairs, and Murphy begins to pace again, mind obviously racing to find a clue of how they could pick up the trail of the lost jewel thieves before they disappear with a million dollars’ worth of diamonds.

Steele waits until Murphy has just passed him, then he deliberately stretches his legs out in front of him, right in Murphy’s path as he turns and retraces his steps. Murphy, faced with the option of stepping over Steele’s legs or changing his circuit, stops abruptly and throws such a scowl at Steele that Steele can’t help the smirk that tracks across his face.

“Sit down, would you? You’re making me nervous with all that pacing. We’ll find them, we always do.”

Murphy cracks, finally. “We wouldn’t even have to find them if it weren’t for you and your complete inability to follow instructions.” His voice isn’t raised, but there is a crackle of controlled fury there that makes Steele want to smile even more.

“You’ve got no idea what you’re doing, or what we’re doing, and you just complicate everything. Things were so much easier when… and she just lets you-” Murphy breaks off suddenly with gritted teeth and starts to walk away, but Steele isn’t letting him go that easily. He gets to his feet and starts towards Murphy’s retreating back.

He allows a note of crowing triumph to enter his voice as he says, “Why Murphy, are you jealous?”

It’s almost a shot in the dark, but the look Murphy turns on him lets him know that he’s at least partly right, and he never has known quite when to keep his mouth shut.

“You are.” He laughs, one he knows will infuriate Murphy. He’s not wrong. “And I thought that it was just that I screwed up your big collar.”

He starts to say something else about himself and Laura, but Murphy cuts him off with a sharp, tight “Shut up,” and advances on him.

Steele takes a step back in retreat, but Murphy keeps coming, so Steele takes another, and another, until his back is against the wall. He never expected this, that he could piss off Mild Murphy this much, and he is honestly curious as to what Murphy will do, stomach fluttering with an odd combination of fear and excitement.

He’s fairly sure Murphy won’t kill him at least, but he could be in for one of the worst beatings he’s ever had. He’s not about to fight Murphy, Laura would never forgive him for one, and he’d probably lose anyway. He’s always been more of a run away and live to fight another day kind of a guy.

If Laura had been here, if things had gone the way he’d thought, Murphy would never have gone this far, with his forearm pressed almost across Steele’s throat, shoulders high and aggressive and his face right up close. His fist is drawn back, and staring into Murphy’s face in that one moment, Steele knows for sure that Murphy is going to strike him.

He flinches, closing his eyes and turning his face slightly away to take the blow on his cheekbone. He may be a fast-talking conman who is no stranger to pain, but that doesn’t mean that he likes it.

It comes as a total shock when he hears Murphy’s fist hit the wall beside his head, none too gently, and suddenly Murphy’s body is pressed against his and he is kissing Steele with all of his diverted aggression. Steele opens his mouth under the onslaught before he even realises what is happening, but as soon as he does he brings his hand up to clench in the collar of Murphy’s shirt. When faced with a willing, good-looking body it takes a stronger man than Steele to say no.

Murphy’s arm is still pinning him to the wall, but his other hand is now fisted in Steele’s hair and all his weight is on Steele from chest to knee. They wrestle briefly for control of the kiss, but Steele is still surprised by the turn that things have taken, and Murphy is seriously humming with barely controlled energy.

Steele slides his spare hand up under Murphy’s shirt, smoothing across the wide expanse of back and pulling him closer. Murphy is warm, hot, and his eyes are closed, and Steele suddenly realises that Murphy is kissing so desperately because he has no idea where he’s going with this even though he’s the one that started it.

Steele soothes with his hand, gently stroking, and drawing a hiss out of Murphy as his fingers graze the edge of his ribs, which must be some pretty bad bruising to get that reaction and certainly explains Murphy’s strange posture. Then Murphy makes a strange sort of whimpering groan into Steele’s mouth, and presses his erection hard against Steele’s thigh.

Steele grins, and Murphy’s lips are still pressed to his, though he drops his face to the junction of Steele’s neck and shoulder when Steele slides his hand between them and down the front of Murphy’s slacks to get a firm grip on him. Steele’s spare hand moves from Murphy’s collar to grip the back of Murphy’s neck, and he can feel the other man’s panting breaths against his collar bone even through his shirt.

He shifts his hips slightly so that his own erection is trapped between their bodies and then squeezes the dick in his hand, making Murphy hiss a breath again, but this time not in pain. He begins slow, gliding strokes, and Murphy’s arm finally drops from across his chest to settle on his hip, skimming up under the bottom of Steele’s jacket, a thumb rubbing gently against his stomach, still through the damn shirt.

Murphy’s body responds of its own accord to the sweeps of Steele’s hand, his hips moving in gentle pulses at first, his thigh slipping between his partner’s and pressing in exactly the right place. Steele groans and his head drops back against the wall, making a dull thud.

They’re barely moving, just the urgent hitching of their hips, and the movement of Steele’s hand. They’re each clutching the other desperately, straining to be the first to come.

Murphy gets there first, wound up for too long. He goes tense for a long moment, and then snuffs a relieved laugh into Steele’s ear. Surprisingly, that’s all it takes for Steele to follow, relaxing limply against the wall, still held there by Murphy’s weight.

They pull back, looking at each other, still breathing hard.

“Well…” Steele says, taking in Murphy’s untucked shirt, tousled hair and thoroughly kissed mouth, which now has the dawn of a smile on it. He’s sure he doesn’t look much more presentable, even though he still has his jacket on.

This is, of course, when Laura comes in.


End file.
